The inspiration for today’s comic should be fairly obvious given current events. It started out as a thought about how silly it is that all phone calls, even those made by children, are being logged and cataloged in some giant government data processing center while terrorists succeed in performing their acts of evil all too often.

Just a few days ago our son lost his first tooth. It took me by surprise because being the youngest in my family I guess I didn’t remember how old kids usually are when they start losing their baby teeth. Our son refused to put it under his pillow though for fear that the tooth fairy would steal it. Guess I get to keep the quarter.

I enjoy Fruity Pebbles on occasion, but I have no misconceptions about the unhealthy nature of these whimsical little sugar bombs. In fact, I find I eat them more often because they are unhealthy. I consider it my duty as a father to ensure that my kids get as little to eat of the unhealthy foods as possible. Fathers have a great responsibility to fill our bodies with junk so our kids won’t. It’s just one of the many sacrifices that we have to make for our families.

Unfortunately today’s comic is based very closely on a true story. A few weeks ago at the Mt. Carmel School District in Pennsylvania a little 5 year old girl received a 10 day suspension for making “terroristic threats” with a Hello Kitty bubble gun. It’s not very clear how school officials came to believe that a Hello Kitty bubble gun was an instrument of terror but now this little girl will always carry with her the memory of the day that the authoritarians at the school hauled her in for questioning without her parent’s knowledge and labeled her as a troubled individual.

In light of recent horrific school shootings, school districts across the nation seem to be responding in one of two ways: 1. Hire armed guards to protect the children from insane people, or 2. Make the defenseless children even more defenseless. Sorry kids, you can’t even defend yourself with something as harmless as bubbles.

The child’s name and appearance in the comic are completely fictional. I promise, the next comic won’t deal with such heavy subject matter.

I have a hard time understanding how newspapers continue to be published. I know that many have already gone out of business and some have begun to switch to online only content but there are still thousands of various newspapers published every day around this country and I really can’t understand why.

We live in a world where people expect news instantly and by it’s very nature, a newspaper is old news the moment it is printed. As today’s Bus Stop Comics points out, there are still many many older people who read newspapers but the rest of us simply by them on Sundays for the coupons. I almost feel bad when I buy a Sunday paper, pluck out the coupons, and throw the rest away without ever glancing at all those articles that someone worked hard to write.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that local news agencies perform a valuable service to their community. I just enjoy reading their content online as opposed to buying a newspaper every day.

Strangely local television news is almost as bad with their news being out-of-date in modern terms. I’ve had to completely stop watching the local news channel because I get tired of seeing stories about things that I read about several days prior on the internet.